[ADissoN's Journal: its Value in History 



HENRY Colin Campbell 



IFroo. Proceeding's of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1895) 



MADISON 
State Historical Society of Wisconsin 



1895 



\ 



\ 



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http://www.archive.org/details/radissonsjournalOOcamp 



Radisson's Journal: its Value in History 



Henry Colin Campbell 

I) 



[ From Proceedings of the State Historical Societ\' of Wisconsin, 1895] 



MADISON 
State Historical Society of Wisconsin 

1895 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



RADISSON'S JOURNAL: ITS VALUE IN HISTORY. 



BY HENRY COLIN CAMPBELL. 

[Address presented at the Forty-third Annual Meeting of the State Historical Society of 
Wisconsin, December 12, 1895.] 

Among all the subjects connected with the early history of 
the Northwest, particularly that of Wisconsin, it would be dif- 
ficult to find one which is so deeply involved in doubt, confu- 
sion, and ei-ror as are the careers of Pierre-Esprit Radisson and 
Medard Chouart des Groseilliers. 

From a full belief in Radisson 's Journal,' and in what has 
been published concerning him, to a condition of skepticism on 
many important points, has been a long and unpleasant road, 
that I have traveled. For, a year ago, when I began investi- 
gating this subject, Radisson was to me one of the heroes of 
our early history who seemed to deserve naught but honor. 
That vision has been gradually dispelled. I still regard Radis- 
son and Groseilliers as two of the most daring explorers who 
penetrated the Western wilderness during the seventeenth 
century; but I am convinced that Radisson, in his journal, is 
guilty of gross exaggeration and downright falsehood in regard 
to the exploration of the territory in and around Wisconsin. 
He often allows his imagination to run riot. In one place, for 
instance, Radisson speaks of a little convention of three hundred 
bears. In another place he minutely describes a reptile that 
nobody has ever seen on land or sea, a reptile that is absolutely 
unknown to science.^ He calmly records the killing, during 
one trip, of six hundred elk by himself, Groseilliers, and one 
Indian. He tells us, moreover, of the shifting by the wind, 
within a day, of fifty small sand-mountains from one side of 

'See Wis. Hist. Colls., xi., p. 64, for an account of the discovery and 
publication of Radisson's Journal. 

^See Badisson^s Voyages (Prince Society, Boston, 1885), p. 69. 



r'lo^^ 



radisson's. journal: its value in history. 89 

Lake Superior to the other, the scene of this remarkable occur- 
rence being not far from Sault Ste. Marie. And, to our still 
greater astonishment, he tells of sea-serpents in our great lakes. 
Under the circumstances, I trust I may not seem too severe a 
critic when I accuse Radisson of drawing the long bow. 

Radisson's intentionally untruthful statements are almost 
matched by the unintentionally-untruthful statements regard- 
ing him and Groseilliers that have been made by some modern 
writers. Not very much has been written about these two men ; 
but, in what has been written, the proportion of untruth to 
truth is surprisingly large. Error has been piled upon error, 
and hardly two accounts of any of the real or reported achieve- 
ments of Radisson and Groseilliers agree. 

What is the historical value of Radisson's narrative of ex- 
plorations in the West, by himself and Groseilliers, soon after 
the middle of the seventeenth century? The question is of the. 
utmost importance, because it involves the discovery of the 
Upper Mississippi River; indeed, it involves the first explora- 
tion of that great stream down to Southern climes, — for Radis- 
son, in unmistakable terms, describes the Mississippi River; 
he states distinctly that he navigated its waters, and he asserts 
that he went southward so far that it never snowed nor froze. 
All this took place, if it did take place, years before Joliet saw 
the West, years before Marquette reached America. Further- 
more, there is every reason to believe that Radisson's narrative 
of the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi River was 
written several years' before Joliet, accompanied by Marquette, 
embarked upon his famous voyage down that river, as far as the 
mouth of the Arkansas. 

Radisson was a mere youth when, on May 21, 1651, he ar- 
rived in New France. He was a native of St. Malo, in Brit- 
tany, the place in which Jacques Cartier, the discoverer of New 
France, was born. Radisson's father was Sebastien Hayet- 
Radisson, and his mother was Madeleine Herault.^ Both 

1"! hope to embarke myselfe by ye helpe of God this fourth yeare" 
(meaning 1669), writes Radisson at the conclusion of his fourth voyage, 
speaking of Hudson's Bay. See his Voyages, p. 245. 

^ " Chouart et Radisson," by N. E. Dionne, in Memoirs of Royal 
Society of Canada^ 1893 and 1894. The author is legislative librarian of 
the Province of Quebec. 



90 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

parents emigrated to New France, for Radisson states in his- 
Journal that they lived at Three Rivers. Radisson had two 
sisters, Marguerite and Fran9oise, In 1646, Marguerite mar- 
ried Jean Veron de Grand-Menil, by whom she had three chil- 
dren. Veron was killed near Three Rivers by the Iroquois, 
August 19, 1652, and a year and five days later his widow 
married Groseilliers. Fran9oise Radisson married Claude Vo- 
lant de Saint-Claude, and became the mother of eight children. 
Radisson himself, while he mentions in his Journal his 
parents, his brother-in-law, and his brother-in-law's children, 
never mentions having wife or child in New France, yet most 
writers persist in giving him a family of his own, in that 
country. There is no evidence that Radisson was married more 
than once, and that was in after years to a daughter of John 
Kirke,^ one of the charter members of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany. To be sure, the registers of Three Rivers mention a 
woman named Elizabeth Radisson, whose father's name was 
Pierre-Esprit Radisson, his wife being Madeleine Henault;^ but 
as our explorer was a mere youth when he reached New France 
in 1651, and as Elizabeth Radisson married Claude Jutras, 
called Lavallee, in 1657,^ it is plain that she could not be the 
daughter of our explorer, as some writers have stated. It 
appears that at that time there was another Pierre-Esprit Radis- 
son at Three Rivers, and Dionne surmises that he was an uncle 
of the younger Pierre. Suite,"* writing several years before 
Dionne, makes it appear that the elder Pierre-Esprit was the 

'The Kirkes have been termed renegade French. The fact is, that 
Gervase Kirke, whose family had resided in North Derbyshire for several 
generations, was apprenticed to a London merchant, and in the course of 
business became established for a while at Dieppe, where in 1596 he mar- 
ried Elizabeth Goudon. David Kirke, who in 1628 attacked Quebec, 
which surrendered the following year to his brothers Lewis and Thomas, 
was a son of Gervase Kirke. John Kirke, the father-in-law of Radisson, 
was a descendant of David Kirke, and is generally designated as Sir John 
Kirke; but he had not been knighted up to the time that the Hudson's 
Bay Company was chartered by Charles XL, for in that charter he is set 
down as "John Kirke, Esquire." 

^Dionne, Chouart et Radisson. 

^Benjamin Suite, Histoire des Canadie^is-Frangais, v, 

^Ibid. 



jsm.^ 



RADissoN s journal: its value in history. 91 

father of the explorer, and that the former's widow married 
Sebastieii Hayet, by whom she had three daughters, Marguerite, 
Francoise, and Elizabeth. But as Marguerite was married for 
the first, time in 1646,^ and as our explorer was not out of his 
teens in 1651, he was imdoubtediy younger than she; therefore 
Suite's position cannot be supported. That there were at Three 
Rivers two men named Pierre-Esprit Radisson, and that they 
were not father and son, are made still more certain by the fact 
that the jjarents of Elizabeth Radisson came from the parish of 
Saint Nicholas-du-Chardonnet,-' in Paris, whereas Sebastien 
Hayet-Radisson and his family came from St. Malo, in Brit- 
tany.'^ It is certainly reasonable to suppose that the young 
Pierre came from the same part of France that his father did. 
G-roseilliers was considerably older than his dashing compan- 
ion. As to the place of his birth, there is some dispute. The 
Genealogical Dictionary of Canadian Families states that he was 
a native of Charly-St.-Cyr, in Brie, a parish which cannot 
now be located, but which may have been where now stands the 
modern market-town of St. Cyr-sur-Morin,* a short distance from 
Meaux. Suite states that the parents of Groseilliers lived at 
Charly, parish of St. Cyr, in Brie; but Dionne asserts that 
Groseilliers was a native of Touraine, and in support of his po- 
sition he quotes Mother Mary of the Incarnation. " Some time 
since," the reverend mother wrote to her son in 1670, "a 
Frenchman of our Touraine, named des Groseilliers, was married 
in this country. * * * He was very young when he came here, 
and he cultivated my acquaintance because of our country, and 
also in consideration of one of our mothers of Tours, with whose 
father he had lived. " Suite says that before Groseilliers came 
to America, he served at Tours in the family of Savonniere de 
la Trouche, whose daughter, Sister St. Bernard, went to Can- 
ada with Mother Mary of the Incarnation. Groseilliers' service 
in Tours would, in far-away Canada, entitle him to be called 
"a Frenchman of our Touraine," and it does not follow from the 

' Suite and Dionne. 
^ Dionne. 
''Ibid. 
*Ibid. 



<)2 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

reverend mother's letter, which Dionne quotes, that Groseilliers 
was a native of Touraine, "the garden of France." The Gene- 
alogical Dictionary and Suite are probably right in stating that 
he was a native of Brie. His father was Medard Chouart, and 
his mother Marie Poirier.^ There is no evidence to show that 
they accompanied their son to New France, where he arrived not 
later than 1641, perhaps as early as 1637. He, too, was a youth 
when he arrived in New France. He entered th'.^ service of the 
Jesuits in the capacity of donne,-or lay-helper, and he remained 
with them for a number of years. During this part of his career, 
he several times traversed the country between the French set- 
tlements and the villages of the Hurons, and in the course of 
his journeys acquired the Huron and Algonkin languages. 
Suite says that Groseilliers, as early as 1645, went as far west 
as Lake Superior. The next year, he withdrew from the service 
of the Jesuits, and engaged in the fur-trade with the Hurons. 
In November of the same year, he became engaged in mar- 
riage^ to Marie Martin, a daughter of Abraham Martin, a 
pioneer pilot of the St. Lawrence; but instead of marrjnng her, 
G-roseilliers, on September 3, 1647, became the husband of her 
sister Helene, the childless widow of Claude Btienne. It is an 
interesting fact, that Groseilliers' first wife was not only the 
daughter of the man whose name the historic Plains of Abra- 
ham bear to this day, but that she was a god-daughter of the 
great Champlain himself, who bestowed upon her the Christian 
name of his child-wife, Helene -Boulle."* By his first wife, Gro- 
seilliers had two children, one of whom died the day that it was 
born; while the other, bearing his father's name, has, like him, 
a place in history. 

While Radisson was generally known as Radisson, and by no 
other name, the man with whose fortunes his became linked was 
indifferently called Groseilliers and Chouart. There is, in the 
whole province of Quebec, no land, no seignory, bearing the 
name of Groseilliers,^ although Chouart is often called the Sieur 

1 Dionne. 

2 Ibid. 
= Suite. 

*■ Dionne. 

^Dionne, in a personal letter to the writer. 



RADissoN s journal: its value in history. 95 

des Groseilliers. But by purchase, and by his marriage with the 
widow of Jean Veron, Groseilliers became possessed of consid- 
erable land in the vicinity of Three Rivers.^ 

Radisson relates that early in the year (1652) following his 
arrival in New France, the Iroquois captured him while he was 
hunting near Three Rivers, and took him to one of their canton- 
ments in what is now the State of New York. After one futile 
attempt to escape, for which he was tortured and nearly killed, 
he succeeded in reaching Albany, known at that time as Fort 
Orano-t'. He relates that at the fort he met a Jesuit who had 
been captured by the Iroquois, and that the Jesuit assisted him. 
In the fall of 1653, Father Poncet, who had been captured by 
the Iroquois during the previous August, was at b'ort Orange, 
and he relates a conversation that lie had at that time and place 
with a young man who had been captured by the Mohawks at 
Three Rivers. There is no doubt that it was Radisson whom 
the priest met at Fort Orange; the latter's testimony is im- 
portant, for not only does it corroborate Radisson s story about 
his captivity and his escape, but, combined with Radisson' s 
statement that his capture by the Mohawks occurred the year 
after he reached Thi-ee Rivers, it proves conclusively that it was 
in 1651 that Radisson arrived in New France, notwithstanding 
a statement by Suite that he settled in New France before 1647. 

From Fort Orange, Radisson went by way of Manhattan (now 
New Yoi^k) to Holland, thence to France, reappearing in May, 
1654, at Three Rivers, where he had been given up for dead. 
Upon reaching home he found that his sister Marguerite had, 
during the preceding August, married Groseilliers. The friend- 
ship between Radisson and Groseilliers, who ever afterward 
were almost inseparable, dates from that time; their fortunes 
and their ambitions became one; they could not have been 
more firmly bound to each other had they been brothers in 
blood. 

Radisson calls his captivity among the Mohawks, his " first 
voyage. " Next in order and in number, in his published Jour- 
nal, is a voyage which he says he made, as part of the coloniz- 
ing expedition, and body-guard as well, which accompanied the 

' Dionne. 



94 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

Jesuits Ragueneau aiad Duperon to the Onondaga country, in 
the spring of 1657. This expedition returned to the French 
settlements, after an almost miraculous escape from being mas- 
sacred by the Iroquois, in April, 1658.' 

Radisson next describes, in detail, two Western voyao-es 
which he and Groseilliers made after his return from the 
Onondaga mission. The first voyage, Radisson says, took three 
years, and during it Radisson claims that they explored th? 
Mississippi River for a long distance. The second Western 
voyage was along the south shore of Lake Superior, to the 
Huron village near the headwaters of the Black River, and to 
the Sioux Indians in Northern Minnesota. Radisson says that 
this voyage included a trip to Hudson's Bay, and that it lasted 
two years. 

There is a conflict of opinion as to the route that Radisson 
and Groseilliers followed in coming West, two French-Canadian 
writers - asserting that they ascended the St. Lawrence to Lake 
Ontario, passed Niagai^a Falls, and navigated Lake Erie on their 
second voyage. Radisson, however, clearly intends to state 
that on both voyages he and G-roseilliers went up the Ottawa 
River, crossed Lake Nipissing, and descended French River to 

' It is recorded, particularly by Mother Mary of the Incarnation, that a 
young Frenchman, who had been adopted by a famous Iroquois chief, 
told his Indian father that he had dreamt that he (the young Frenchman) 
would die unless a great feast was prepared and everything provided there- 
for eaten. The chief loved his adopted son, and, to save his life, as he 
thought, — for Indians are superstitious about dreams, — he consented to the 
feast. The Indians, encouraged by his son and by other French who were 
in the colony, so gorged themselves that they fell asleep, allowing the 
French to steal away in boats, which had been secretly built. Dionne is 
positive that Radisson was the young hero of this interesting story. But 
Radisson does not mention figuring as the youthful strategist, and there 
is no evidence that he was that young Frenchman. It may have been 
Radisson, or it may have been some one else . French captives among the 
Iroquois were not rare. 

^ Dionne, in Chouart et Radisson^ and L. A. Prud'homme, of St. Bon- 
iface, Manitoba, in Notes Historiques sur la vie de P. E. JiadissoUy 
published in 1892. 



RADISSON S journal: ITS VALUE IN HISTORY. 95 

Lake Huron, the same route that Jean Nicolet followed when 
he visited Wisconsin in 1634.- 

Describing the first voyage West, the "third voyage" of his 
Journal, Radisson says that he and Groseilliers, with some of 
the Indians that had formed their party as far as the mouth of 
French River, went toward the South; and that while on this 
course they passed the place where the Jesuit fathers had lived, 
meaning the destroyed missions among the Hurons, near the 
mouth of River Wye, Georgian Bay; and he virtually says 
that his party made almost a complete circuit of Lake Huron, 
"after * * * many days" arriving at a "large island, 
where we found their [Huron - companions] village, their wives 
& children. You must know that we passed a strait some 
3 leagues beyond that place. The wildmen give it a name; it 
is another lake, but not so bigg as that we passed before. We 
calie it the lake of the staring hairs, because those that live 
about it have their hair like a brush turned up. " Several 
writers, the late Edward D. NeilP^ among the number, contend 

'Radisson speaks of ascending the "river of the meadows," of crossing 
the "lake of the castors," and of going down the "river of the sorcerers," 
to the ' ' first great lake. ' ' Between the time that it was known as the Grand 
River of the Algonkins, the name which Champlain gave it, and the time 
that it became known by its present name, the Ottawa River was called the 
River of the Prairies, as we learn in the Jesuit Belations. In French, 
prairie is equivalent to meadow in English, and in writing English, Radis- 
son used the term "meadow." The " lake of the castors " is Lake Nipiss- 
ing, which got the name that Radisson gave it, either from the fact that 
the Amikoue (beaver or castor) Indians dwelt not far from it, or from the 
abundance of beavers in the lake at one time. Radisson's "river of the 
sorcerers," upon which he and Groseilliers descended to the "first great 
lake," is French River, along which dwelt the Nipissing Indians, who, as 
the Relations inform us, were called sorcerers because they practiced 
magic moi-e than other Indians. The "first great lake " is of course Lake 
Huron. See also, Butterfield, Discover!/ of the JVorthwest in 1634, V- 4:7. 

^Perrot and the Jesuit delations lead one to believe that the Hurons, 
after fleeing from their own. country in 1651, spent several years in the 
vicinity of Mackinac. In 1653 they, or some of them, were at the Huron 
Islands, also called Pottawattomie Islands, at the mouth of Green Bay. 
The Hurons had certainly left Manitoulin before Radisson's first Western 
voyage. 

8 Wis. Hist. Colls., X., p. 293. 



96 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

that Radisson's large island was Grand Manitoulin, Lake Huron. 
To me, this theory does not seem reasonable. Manitoulin Island 
was out of the way of our two voyagers, according to Radisson's 
description of the voyage. As they were coasting the east shore 
of the present State of Michigan, just before they reached the 
" large island, " for them to go to Manitoulin would require a 
voyage of about forty miles across open water. The " lake of 
the staring hairs, " that Radisson mentions in his description of 
the island, is certainly Lake Michigan, where dwelt the Ottawas, 
who so dressed their hair that it stood erect. The strait which 
Radisson mentions, to which " the wildmen give a name, " seems 
to be Michillimackinac, and he apparently intends to limit the 
term to the narrow points of mainland between Southern and 
Northern Michigan. Radisson's "large island" is undoubtedly 
Bois Blanc, which has a shore line of thirty-five miles, and is a 
few miles east of the two narrow points of the Michigan penin- 
sulas. Bois Blanc would be on the way to the places which 
Radisson says that he and C4roseilliers afterward visited; while 
Manitoulin island was not only out of their way, but to reach 
it would necessitate a dangerous voyage across open water, and 
the trip would have taken Radisson and Groseilliers back almost 
to the place where they had entered Lake Huron before com- 
mencing to skirt that body of water. 

From this large island, where both Hurons and Ottawas seem 
to have been at the time, Radisson says that he and Groseilliers, 
not caring to stay upon an island, went to the Pottawattomies, 
with whoni they spent the winter, probably near Green Bay — 
the bay, not the city of that name. Radisson says that the fol- 
lowing spring they visited the Escotecke (Fire Nation, also 
called Maskoutens), who at that time dwelt upon Fox River. ^ 
That summer they, according to Radisson, explored Lake Mich- 
igan, " the delightfullest lake in the world," and thence went 
upon their Southern journey. Radisson, continuing his narra- 
tive, speaks of visiting a country where the climate is so mild 

' Nicolet found them on the Fox River in 163i, and Father Allouez, the 
*ounder of the first Christian missions in Wisconsin, found them in the 
same neighborhood in 1670. Their viUage was apparently near Berlin, in 
Green Lake County; see Thwaites's Story of Wisconsin, p. 34. 



RADISSON S journal: ITS VALUE IN HISTORY. 97' 

that the earth brings forth its fruit twice a year, so that "Italy- 
comes short of it;" and of meeting people that dwelt about the 
salt water (Gulf of Mexico) who told them of men who came 
ashore in "great white things" (ships).' He also relates the 
finding of a barrel, broken as they break barrels in Spain. Rad- 
isson continues: " We had not as yett scene the nation Nadon- 
eeeronons. We had hurrons w^^ us. Wee persuaded them to come 
along to see their owne nation that fled there [the flight of the 
Hurons to the Sioux on the Upper Mississippi River], but they 
would not by any means. " Radisson speaks of seeing on this 
journey the shovel-nosed fish ; also a large bird, with a bill twenty- 
two thumbs long, which swallows a whole salmon, — probably an 
exaggerated description of the white pelican, which has a large 
pouch under its bill; " shee-goats very bigg, " probably antelopes ; 
"an animal somewhat less than a cow whose meat is exceedingly 
good, " perhaps wapiti ; and stags, buffaloes, and turkeys. He 
describes "lemons not so bigg as ours, but sowrer;" grapes 
" very bigg, greene" — the vines grew by the river-side. " It never 
snows nor freezes there, but mighty hot. " 

Radisson and Groseilliers returned to the foot of Lake Mich- 
igan, visited the Indians of Sault Ste. Marie, and spent the fol- 
lowing winter on the shore of Lake Superior, not far from the 
Sault, in the midst of the nation of the Sault, who were Ojib- 
ways, and in the neighborhood of Christinoes, or Crees. The 
question of the location of this winter camp is important, on 
account of a journey that Radisson says that he and Groseilliers 
made late that winter. Radisson says that, fearing the Iroquois, 
they retired to the upper lake, nearer the Nadoneceronons. 
This means that they went along the south shore; for had they 
gone over to the north shore, they would have gone farther 
from the Nadoneceronons, or Sioux, instead of nearer to them, 

' I am not sure that .Radisson does not go so far as to claim that he and 
Groseilliers went clear to the Gulf of Mexico. After leaving " the delight- 
fullest lake in the world," which is apparently Lake Michigan, he says that 
they went on until they found a climate superior to that of Italy, and he 
adds: " Being about the great sea, we conversed with people that dwelleth 
about the salt water." The salt water is clearly the Gulf of Mexico, and it 
seems that the " great sea " is not Lake Michigan. This is one of many 
problems, that we find in the third voyage. 



■q8 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

as the Sioux were not far from Chequamegon Bay. The fact 
that they met Christinoes has given rise to a theory that they 
went West almost to the Montreal River, on the south shore of 
the lake, during this voyage; but Radisson expressly says that 
the Christinoes came to them, in order to trade with the nation 
of the Sault, and to be where they could kill large game during 
the winter. That Radisson, from his own account, did not go 
very far west on the south shoi'e of Lake Superior, is made ap- 
parent by the fact that in his second voyage West he minutely 
describes the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior and the adjacent 
■countiy, and intimates that he had never seen them before. 
That Christino camp was, therefore, located somewhere on the 
south shore of Lake Superior, between the Sault and the Pic- 
tured Rocks, possibly at Whitefish Bay. 

In connection with this journey to Lake Superior, Radisson 
makes a statement that is both surprising and confusing. 
Among the nation of the Sault, he says, " we found some 
frenchmen y' came up with us, who thanked us kindly for to 
come & visit them. " Early in his account of this voyage, Radis- 
son states that the Frenchmen who had started with him and 
Groseilliers from the French settlements, turned back, affrighted 
by the Iroquois, leaving him and Groseilliers to contiiiue the 
voyage with no companions save Indians. Upon Radisson' s 
own showing, it is difficult to account for the presence of other 
Frenchmen at the Sault. It is possible, of course, that some of 
their original companions had afterward developed sufficient 
•courage to make a flying trip to the vicinity of the Sault, which 
Nicolet had reached in l6o-t, and the Jesuits Raymbault and 
Jogues in 1641. We have already seen that Groseilliers him- 
self is credited by Suite with a trip to Lake Superior in 16 i5. 

Late that winter, according to Radisson, he and Groseilliers, 
with a hundred and fifty Indian companions,* walked nearly fifty 
leagues on snow-shoes, meaning one continuous journey for that 
distance. They arrived at a river-side, where they stopped for 
three weeks to make boats, and they then went up that- river for 
eight days, until they came to " a nation called Pontonatenick 
& Matonenock; that is, the scrattchers;" here they obtained "some 
Indian meale or corne from those 2 nations, W^^ lasted us till 



RADissoN s journal: its value in history. 99 

we came to the first landing isle. There we weare well re- 
ceived again. " They tried to prevail upon the Indians of the 
"first landing isle" to take them down to the French settle- 
ments ; but, the Indians being afraid of the Iroquois, Radisson 
says that he and Groseilliers were detained for another year. 
An incidental remark shows that these Indians were Hurons : 
" We weare in a great apprehension least that the Hurons should, 
as they have done often, when the ffathers [Jesuits] weare in their 
country, kill a ffrenchman. " The Hurons, after leaving the 
Mackinac and Green Bay regions, went to the Mississippi River 
country, and some years before 1660 were at Bald Island, Lake 
Pepin.' Is it possible that Radisson means that he found them 
there? Did that journey of fifty leagues on snow-shoes, begin- 
ning at a point west of Sault Ste. Marie, bring them to the 
mouth of Fox River? Was it up that river that they traveled 
for eight days? The Pontonatenick were Pottawattomies. Who 
were the Matonenock'^ Indians, whom they found with the Pot- 
tawattomies? At this village they had to lay in a stock of 
corn meal, and this indicates that the journey from that point 
to the "first landing isle" was of considerable length. And 
the Hurons, moreover, were the Indians whom they found at the 
"first landing isle. " Fi'om Radisson 's description of the manner 

' The movements of the Hurons are involved in considerable doubt. Ac- 
cording to the Jesuit Relatione, they were still in the Green Bay country 
in 1657, but we read that they hved for some years on Bald Island, Lake 
Pepin. We also know that Radisson and Groseilliers found them in North- 
western Wisconsin not later than 1659, and at that time the Hurons had 
been in that vicinity several months at least, because the Hurons who went 
west with our two explorers knew the way to their village from Lake Su- 
perior, although the Hurons had gone to that place from the Mississippi 
River and had not yet reached Lake Superior. Radisson, speaking of their 
being at the "first landing isle," says that they were "newly there." 

''Radisson calls the Maskoutens the Escotecke; he probably does not 
mean the Maskoutens, when he speaks of the Matonenocks. On a map 
attached to the Jesuit Relation of 1671, appears the name of the Mantou- 
oviee, who lived near the Poxes at that time. In the Relation of 1673, 
they are designated as the Makoueoue, and they were still near the Foxes, 
in the Fox River region. At the time of Nicolet's visit, in 1634, the Potta- 
wattomies were near the mouth of Green Bay, and the Mantououee were 
near Escanaba. 



lOO WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

in which the "first landing isle" was reached, it is simply im- 
possible that it was Bois Blanc, Manitouliu, or any other island 
in that vicinity. Besides, it is known that the Hurons were 
not near the straits of Mackinac, nor farther east, at the time 
that Radisson speaks of. Radisson has before this intimated 
that the Hurons had already gone up the Mississippi River. 

That journey which began with a tramp of about fifty leagues 
on snow-shoes was remai'kable; if it actually took place, the 
occasion for it must have been extraordinary. Radisson makes 
it plain that the objective point was the place where the Hurons 
dwelt, and he has already said that he and Groseilliers had pr-e- 
viously endeavored to prevail upon their Huron companions on 
that Southern trip to visit the other Hurons in the country of 
the Sioux. I feel sure, from Radisson's account, that they were 
only a short distance from Sault Ste. Marie when this journey 
began. They wanted the Hurons to escort them home, which 
they wished to reach before another winter set in. Had the 
Hurons been at Mackinac, or anywhere in that region, Radisson 
and Groseilliers would not have had to start for their village 
late in the winter, nor would they have had to walk fifty 
leagues on snow-shoes, spend eight days in ascending a river, 
and go still farther, before reaching the dwellings of the Hurons. 
The distance from^ Whitefish Bay to the mouth of the Fox River 
is not much more than fifty leagues. Our explorers were dis- 
appointed when they reached the "first landing isle," for the 
Indians refused to take them down to the French, and they had to 
remain West another year, making three years altogether. That 
summer, Radisson went hunting, and Groseilliers was attacked 
with the falling sickness, or epilepsy. They reached home, 
Radisson says, the following year; "at last," he says, "we are 
out of those lakes. " The Indians with them, he states, num- 
bered five hundred. He adds that at the Long Sault, near 
the Ottawa River, they were attacked by Iroquois, whom they 
finally drove away; that, after reaching Three Rivers, he led an 
onslaught against the Iroquois, whom he defeated, his force con- 
sisting of five hundred Indians and some Frenchmen; and that 
the Western Indians encountered no enemy upon their return 
journey. 



radisson's journal: its value in history. IDI 

Before summing up my conclusions regarding tlie " third 
voyage," — tlie first voyage West, — I find it necessary to take up 
the "fourth voyage." The reason therefor will be made appar- 
ent. The route on this journey was up the Ottawa River, across 
Lake Nipissing, and along the shores of Georgian Bay to Sault 
Ste. Marie, where they rested and feasted. Resuming their 
voyage, they came to an isle "delightful for the diversity of its 
fruits," which they called the "isle of the four beggars;" and 
the same night they went over to the mainland, a distance of 
about six leagues, and found themselves near the mouth of a 
small river, probably the Little Iron River, near which Radis- 
son says he saw many pieces of copper. He describes the Grand 
Portal, at the Pictured Rocks, and adds: "I gave it the name 
of the portall of St. Peter, because my name is so-called, and 
that I was the first Christia'i that ever saw it." Rxdisson next 
describes the Huron Isles, and Keweenaw Bay. They portaged 
across Keweenaw Point, and five days later they met a company 
of Christinoes. At the mouth of the Montreal River, some of 
the Indians — Radisson intimates that they were of the nation of 
the Sault — left them to take the shortest route to their country, 
which was inland.' At Chequamegoii Bay, which Radisson de- 
scribes with clearness, the Hurons who were of the party de- 
parted for the places where their wives were, " five great days' 
journeys" inland.^ It was cold, and Radisson says that he and 

' Father Chrysostom Verwyst, O. S. F., author of Missionary Labors of 
Fathers Marquette .1 Menard, and Allouez, and an excellent authority 
on the early history of Wisconsin, on the topography of the country south 
of Lake Superior, and on the Chippewa language and Indians, thinks that 
• the Indians who landed at the mouth of the Montreal River were Chip- 
pewas bound for Lac du Flambeau. " Even to our day," says Father 
Verwyst, " an old Indian trail led from Ironton Bay to Penokee Ridge and 
Lac du Flambeau." 

^ Radisson, in describing his voyage to the same place, a few days later, 
states that after traveling four days, and just a day before they reached 
the Huron village, they reached a lake "some eight leagues in circuit," 
which Father Verwyst thinks was Court Oreilles, called Ottawa Lake 
by the Chippewas, even to this day, there being a tradition among them 
that long ago Ottawa? perished of starvation at this lake. Radisson de- 
scribes such a famine in that neighborhood, and Ottawas were among the 
victims. 



102 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

Groseilliei-s were nearly starved. ^ Near Whittlesey's Creek, or 
Shore's Landing,- they built a small rude fort, the first structure 
built by white men in Wisconsin or on Lake Superior. Twelve 
days later, fifty Hurons came and escorted the Frenchmen to 
their village. Soon the Hurons separated for the winter's hunt- 
ing. They met again at a small lake, and during the winter 
hundreds of them died of famine. Late in the winter, they 
wandered westward into the country of the Sioux, between the 
St. Croix River and the Upper Mississippi River ; and in tliat 
country, between a small lake and a meadow, the latter four 
leagues long, a fort covering a space six hundred by six hundred 
and three feet was built — of course the first structure erected 
with the aid of white men in Minnesota. Radisson went three 
days' journey to the country of the Christinoes, and wlaile re- 
turning to the fort he records that lie passed a lake that was 
still frozen hard. At seven days' journey from the fort, Radis- 
son and Groseilliers visited a village of the Sioux, or " nation of 
the beef," who claimed to number seven thousand men. After 
six weeks, the explorers returned to Lake Superior, accompanied 
by some of the Sioux, and found ice in Chequamegon Bay. They 
again built a fort, and afterwards, Radisson says, he and Gro- 
seilliers, accompanied by Christinoes, went to the waters of 
Hudson's Bay. Radisson says that tliey returned from the " bay 
of the north," as he calls it, "by another river." While re- 
turning, they received gifts from messengers sent by the Sioux, 
and in the middle of winter returned to the big fort which had 
been erected by them in Northern Minnesota. They returned 
home in the summer. 

^ There is a tradition among the Chippewas, recorded by W. W. Warren 
in Minn. Hist. Coifs., v., that one morning early in winter two Frenchmen, 
the first white men to visit Chequamegon Bay, were found in a starving 
condition on Madelaine Island . It has been surmised that these two men 
were Radisson and Groseilliers, and the surmise may be correct . But the 
tradition has it that these Frenchmen spent the winter in the Chippewa 
village on the mainland, while Radisson and GroseiUiers spent the winter 
inland, with the Hurons and the Ottawas, and Radisson does not even men- 
tion being on Madelaine Island . 

■•'Verwyst, "Historic Sites on Chequamegon Bay," Wis. Hist. Colls., 
xiii., p. 433. 



RADissoN s journal: its value in history, 103 

In what year did this voyage end? There is a conflict of 
opinion on this point, but really there is no room for doubt. 
The voyage of Radisson and Groseilliers to Lake Superior, to 
the Huron village in Northwestern Wisconsin, and to the Sioux 
in Northern Minnesota, terminated in August, 1660, although 
many writers claim that it was the voyage to the vicinity of 
G-reen Bay that terminated at that time. 

The Jesuit Relation for 1660 states, in brief, that there ar- 
rived at Quebec, in August of that year, two Frenchmen, with 
three hundred Algonkins, in sixty canoes laden with furs ; that 
the two Frenchmen had spent the previous wiater on the shores 
of Lake Superior; that they had baptized two hundred children 
of the Algonkin tribe with whom they first lived, the children 
having suffered from disease and starvation, and forty of them 
dying; that the Frenchmen, at six days' journey from Lake Su- 
perior, toward the southwest, found the remnants of the Petun 
tribe of Hurons, and that the daring explorers visited the 
country of the Sioux — Nadwechiwea, the Relation states, mean- 
ing Nadouessioux, — -among whom they saw women with their 
noses cut off, and round pieces of their scalps torn off, in 
punishment of adultery. The Relation records that in five of 
these villages the two Frenchmen counted five thousand men 

It is also stated in the Relation that the exp.orers went to 
the habitations of another nation, called "Bwalaks, or warriors," 
who, living in a country where timber was scai'ce, made fire 
with miner-al coal, and covered their huts with skins, or made 
dwellings of clay. Radisson, it will be remembered, speaks of 
visiting the Huron village at five great days" journey from 
Lake Superior- ^ays that he and Groseilliers spent the winter 
with the Hurons ana ,.ith a hundred and fifty Ottawa braves, 
who, with their families, joined them during the winter, and 
that before spring five hundred died of hunger. He mentions 
finding in the Sioux country great cabins covered with skins 
and mats, and he records that the Sioux cut off noses, and re- 
moved the scalps at the crown, in punishment of adultery. 
These Indians,' relates Radisson, who calls them "Nadonecero- 

' Father Verwyst is of the opinion that these Sioux corresponded to the 
Bwalak of the Relations, and were Assiniboines. 



04 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

nons" and also "nation of the beef," — meaning buffalo, — had 
no wood, and used moss for fuel. 

Radisson's statements, and the account in the Relation, of 
the two nameless Frenchmen who returned to Quebec from 
Lake Superior in August, 1660, agree in almost every partic- 
ular that is essential to the theory that Radisson and Groseil- 
liers and the two nameless Frenchmen were identical. Radis- 
son, however, says that they spent the first -winter with the 
Hurons, a considerable distance inland from Lake Superior, 
whereas the Relation states that they spent, the winter on the 
shore of the lake. Radisson states that on this voyage he and 
Groseilliers spent two winters near Lake Superior, the second 
one at the large fort built in Northern Minnesota ; but the Rela- 
tion does not mention more than one winter that they spent 
away from home on this voyage. The Relation, moreover, does 
not make the slightest allusion to the voyage to the Hudson's 
Bay region, which Radisson asserts that he and Groseilliers 
made while they were in the Lake Superior country. 

The Relation mentions the return of these two Frenchmen 
from their Lake Superior voyage, in August, 1660, but does not 
give their names. The following entry is found in the Journal 
des Jesuites,^ for 1660: "On the 17th [August] Monseigneur of 
Petrea [Laval, the first bishop of Quebec] left upon his visit and 
arrived at Montreal on the 21st, where the Ottawas had already 
arrived on the 19th. They numbered three hundred. Des Gro- 
seilliers was in their company, who had gone to them the year 
before. They had departed from Lake Superior with one hun- 
dred canoes; forty turned back, and sixty arrived, loaded with 
peltry to the value of 200,000 livres. At Montreal they left to 
the value of 50,000 livres and brought the rest to Three Rivers. 
They come in twenty-six days, but are two months in going 
back. Des Groseilliers wintered with the Boeuf tribe, who were 
about 4,000, and belonged to the sedentary Nadoueseronons. 
Father Menard,- Fa^iher Albanel and six other Frenchmen went 

^Journal des. Jesuites, par MM. les Abbes Laverdiere et Casgrain 
(Quebec, 1871). 

'^When the Journal des Jesuites says that Father Menard " went back 
with them," it means that he went back with the Indians only. But in 



RADissoN s journal: its value in history. 105 

back with them. Albanel was soon abandoned by the Indians, 
and he retui^ned to the settlements. 

Radisson himself furnishes conclusive evidence that the voyage 
which he and Groseilliers made to the Lake Superior country 
during which they visited the Huroas in Northwestern Wiscoa 
sin and the Sioux in Northern Minnesota, terminated in 1660. 
He records that, in returning from this voyage, his party passed 
the Long Sault, on the Ottawa River, shortly after the defeat of 
Dollard and his little band of heroes, one of the most thrilling 
and memorable events in early Canadian history. The massacre 
of Dollard's command occurred on May 21, 1660. Furthermore, 
speaking of passing along the south shore of Lake Superior, at 
the beginning of this voyage, Radisson clearly describes the 
Pictured Rocks near Munising; and he states that he called 

Neill's chapter on " Discovery Along the Great Lakes " in Winsor's J^ar- 
rative and Critical History of America, iv., p. 170; in Winsor's From 
Cartier to F-ontenac, and in other books too numerous to mention, we 
find the statement that Father Menard went back with Radisson and 
Groseilliers. An erroneous statement was never more widely circulated, 
upon such excellent authority . So far as I have been able to learn, Neill 
was originally responsible for it. Most of the writers who assert that 
Father Menard went west with our two explorers, imagine that it was the 
first Western voyage, from which Radisson and Groseilliers returned in 
Augvist, 1660; but even admitting, for a moment, such an unwarrant- 
able view of the matter, this theory that the Jesuit and the two explorers 
went West together is exploded by Radisson's own statement that he 
and Groseilliers rested for a year after their first Western voyage: while 
Menard made haste to join the flotilla that had brought them home. 
Some writers, with Radisson's year of rest in mind, start Father Menard 
and Radisson and Groseilliers West together as late as the autumn of 1661, 
regardless of the fact that Menard wrote his famous farewell letter, before 
starting on this voyage, on August 27, 1660, at 2' o'clock in the morning, 
that it is known that he started West at that tim-?, and that he died in the 
wilds of Northwestern Wisconsin during August, 1661. Thus he had actu- 
ally died before, according to these latter writers, he started West. Win- 
sor, to whom I took the liberty of writing when I saw the statement in his 
histories about Menard's coming West with our adventurers in 1660, re- 
plied in part as follows: " I think you * * * may be right. I find in 
my interlined copy of my history (iv., p. 170) that there is a ? against the 
passage." Verwyst, the historian of Menard, in a personal letter to the 
writer, utterly discredits the theory that the priest and Radisson and Gro- 
seilliers came West together. 



I06 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

what is now known as the Grand Poi'tal, the " portal of St. 
Peter, " because Peter was his name, aiid because he was the 
first Christian who ever saw it. Father Menard, the first mis- 
sionary to reach Lake Superior, passed the Pictured Rocks in 
the autumn of 1660;' thus he, not Radisson, would have been 
the first Christian to see the Grand Portal, if those writers are 
correct who assert that the second voyage, the one to Lake 
Superior, did not end until after 1660. The dates that these 
writers give, run all the way from late in 1662 to 1664. To 
show how erroneous all these theories are, it is only necessary to 
mention the fact that the Journal cles Jesuites xiotes the pres- 
ence of Groseilliers at Quebec in May, 1662.^ 

Did Radisson and Groseilliers really reach Hudson's Bay by 
an inland voyage? Radisson says explicitly that they did so^ 
and it is one of the most important achievements claimed foi" 
the two explorers. But the claim is a doubtful one. Radisson 
says that this voyage, to Like Supsrior and beyond, lasted two 
years. It must have taken fully that time, if the two explorers, 
in addition to spanding a winter anywhere near Lake Su- 
perior, and to visitiiig the Sioux in Northern Minnesota, made 
a journey to the waters of Hudson's Bay. From reading the 
Jesuit Relations, one gets the impression that the two advent- 
urers spent but one winter in the West; and that impression is 
strengthened by the Journal des Jesuites, which, in mentioning 
the arrival of the Indian flotilla from Lake Superior in August, 
1660, states that "Des Groseilliers was in their company, which 
he had joined the year before." It has been ascertained that 
on April 15, 1659, Pierre-Esprit Radisson was at Three Rivers, 
as godfather of Marguerite, daughter of Groseilliers, Father 
Menard performing the ceremony.^ We have seen that there 
were, then residing at Three Rivers, two men named Pierre- 
Esprit Radisson; therefore, it cannot be stated with certainty 

'Jesuit Eelations, 1663. 

- Under May, 1662, the following entry is found: ' ' I departed from Quebek 
on the 3rd for Three Rivers; there met GroseiUiers, who was going to the 
Sea of the North. He left Quebek the night before with ten men." 
During the same year Groseilliers and Radisson entered the service of 
Boston merchants. 

^ Suite, Histoire des Canadiens-F'rangais. 



RADISSON S journal: ITS VALUE IN HISTORY. 10/ 

that the godfather was our explorer, although it would have 
been natural for him to stand sponsor for his sister's child. 

The only contemporary writer who confirms the Hudson's 
Bay story, in Radisson's Journal, is Noel Jeremie, who, in his 
Relation of Hudson Bay^ where late in the seventeenth century 
he commanded for the French, states that Groseilliers had pen- 
etrated inland to Hudson's Bay, and had also reached Mani- 
toba. Tending to coifirm what Jeremie says, is the fact that, on 
at least one of the early French maps of the West, what is now 
known as Pigeon River, at the Grand Portage, on the north 
shore of Lake Superior, bears the name of Groseilliers.' Grand 
Portage is on the route to Hudson's Bay, and the fact that 
more than two hundred years ago Pigeon River bore the name 
of Groseilliers, indicates that our explorer had gone at least 
thus far, during his voyage which ended in 1660; for it is cer- 
tain that he never visited that region after that year. His 
presence at Grand Portage, at that time, can only be accounted 
for by the theory of an attempt, at least, to reach Hudson's Bay 
from Lake Superior. Radisson not only says that he and Gro- 
seilliers reached the "sea of the north," as he calls it, but he 
speaks of barracks which he saw on the shore of the bay, bar- 
racks that Europeans had built; and he also states that the 
Indians of the bay told him that various white men had reached 
the place before, by water. Radisson states that the journey to 
and from tlie bay was made in canoes, and that the explorers 
returned from the bay on a different river from the one by 
wliich they went thither. He says that they went direct from 
Lake Superior to Hudson's Bay; the statements that the Sioux 
sent gifts to them, by "ambassadors, " and that they spent part 
of the second winter at the large fort in Nortliern Minnesota, 
indicate that the more westerly route was that by which they 
returned from the bay. 

Radisson is at times most untruthful. There is good reason, 
on this account alone, to doubt his Hudson's Bay story. On the 
other liand. he and Groseilliers seem to have started upon that 
voyage with the intention of trying to reach the "bay of the 

' Franquelin's map, 1688. For de.scriptive and historical account of Grand 
Portage, see Wis. Hist. Colls., xi., pp. 123-125, note. 



I08 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

north," and we know that with both of them Hudson's Bay was 
a ruling passion. 

It being established that the second westward voyage of Radis- 
son and G-roseilliers terminated in August, 16l30, this question 
assumes large proportions: Whea did their first Western voy- 
age, which has been assigned by most writers to the period 
actually covered by their last Western voyage, come to an end? 
The question is vital, because of Radisson's claim that his dis- 
covery of the Mississippi River took place during the first West- 
ern voyage. 

If Radisson and G-roseilliers were not the two nameless French- 
men mentioned in the Relation of 1656, who had spent the pre- 
vious two years in the vicinity of Green Bay, I contend that 
the Mississippi River voyage which Radisson describes, — I mean 
the first Western voyage, from beginning to end, — never took 
place. 

In his account of the Lake Superior voyage, Radisson speaks 
in several places of the other voyage to the West; and in so 
many words says that he and Groseilliers rested for a year from 
their first Western voyage, before they embarked upon their 
second Western voyage, — the one to Lake Superior, which was 
their last expedition to the West. The two voyages are arranged 
in this order, in Radisson's Journal; the Lake Michigan voyage 
being called his third, and the Lake Superior voyage his fourth. 
He could not declare more plainly, that the Lake Superior 
voyage was the next one after that to Lake Michigan. In doing 
this, Radisson is caught in his own snare. We have his own 
statement that he went to the Onondaga oplony, accompanying 
the expedition which started in the spring of 1657, returning 
to Thres Rivers in the spring of 1658. It is therefore plain 
that this Onondaga voyage took place between his two Western 
journeys; so that if the first Western voyage took place at all, 
it was undertaken at an earlier date than Radisson indirectly 
gives it. 

Radisson did not arrive in New France until 1651. One 
year later he- was captured by the Iroquois, and did not re- 
turn to Three Rivers from captivity until the spring of 1654. 
If Radisson ever made a Western voyage previous to his Lake 



RADissoN s journal: its value in history. 109 

Superior journey, the earlier voyage took place some time be- 
tween the spring of 1654, when he returned from captivity 
among the Iroquois, and the spring of 1657, when he went to 
the Onondaga country. 

At that period, the population of New France was so small, ^ 
that no two men — especially two men like Radisson and Gro- 
seilliers, one of whom had had a remarkable adventure with the 
Iroquois, and the other of whom was already looked upon as one 
of the most enterprising of explorers — could leave the French 
settlements for the far West, and return after a long absence, 
without attracting attention, especially on the part of the 
Jesuits, who, faithful chroniclers that they were, would of course 
have recorded what the explorers had seen and heard. Before 
this, Groseilliers himself had been for years in the service of the 
Jesuits. Hence I maintain that if Radisson and Groseilliers 
made a voyage to the West, between the spring of 1654 and the 
.spring of 1657, they were the two nameless explorers of Lake 
Michigan and the Fox River country who are mentioned in the 
Relation for 1656. It may be asked why, if Groseilliers was 
one of these two nameless French explorers, the Jesuits, his 
former masters, did not mention his name In their Relations. 
With safety It can be asserted, In view of the small popula- 
tion of New France at that period, that no matter who those 
two explorers of 1654-56 were, the Jesuits knew their names; 
that some of the Jesuits even knew them personally, and that 
they withheld their names for reasons of their own. It has 
been seen that the Relation for 1660 does not give the names of 
the two explorers of Lake Superior who returned In August of 
that year; but we know that they were Radisson and Groseil- 
liers, because the Journal cles Jesuites supplies the name of 
Groseilliers. The Journal was a more private record than the 
Relations,'- and was not published until 1871; while the Relations 

' Garneau, in his History of Canada, says that, even at a later period 
than this, the population of New France did not eseeed 2,500. 

'^ For an account of the Jesuit Relations, see Winsor, Narrative and 
Critical Hist, of Amer., iv.; also, Neiv England 3Iagazine for May, 
1895. The only complete collection, in America, of the original Rela- 
tions, published in Paris, is contained in the Lenox Library, New York. 



no WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

were sent to the court of France, and published soon after they 
were written. 

The apparent disagreement between Radisson and the Jesuit 
Relations, as to the duration of the Lake Superior voyage, has 
been noted. Radisson's assertion as to the time that his first 
Western voyage took place, and the statement of the Jesuit Re- 
lations, as to the time that the two nameless explorers of 1654-56 
spent in the West, differ in even a more pronounced manner. 
Radisson, early in his account of this voyage,^ says that it took 
three years; further on, he says that two years had gone by, 
and that he and Groseilliers would not be able to return home 
for another year; -^ while, near the conclusion, he says that the 
voyage had lasted three years and a few months.'^ The Relation 
states that the two nameless explorers of 1654-56 started West on 
August 6, 1654, and returned toward the end of August, 1656. 
Radisson says that he started West with G-roseiliiers, on the first 
Western voyage, about tlie middle of June (no year given); but 
a little further on, he contradicts this statement, for he says 
that, just before they reached Lake Nipissing, they picked some 
blackberries " not as yett full ripe, " which they boiled with 
some tri2?e de i-oche.^ In the upper-lake region, blackbei'ries 
ripen about September 1. By July 1, — which, if they started 
about the middle of June,' must have been about the time that 
Radisson and Groseilliers reached the spot where he says that 
he and Groseilliers picked the blackberries, — this fruit, instead of 
being nearly ripe, would have been so green that nobody would 
think of using it for food. If Radisson and Groseilliers had 
been the two nameless explorers who left the French settlements 
August 6, they would, when they reached the region of Lake 
Nipissing, have found blackberries in the state described by 
Radisson, for they would have reached that spot about August 
20, at which time blackberries are nearly ripe. Radisson's 
statement about the blackberries disproves his statement that 

ip. 134. 

"^ P. 157. 

'P. 170. 

''A kind of lichen growing on rocks, and used by early explorers as food. 

*This part of his journey took Father AUouez two weeks. 



RADISSON S journal: its value in history. Ill 

he and Groseilliers started for the West, ou this voyage, about 
the iiiiddle of June; and it proves that if they did make such a 
voyao-e, they started at .the same time that the two nameless 
Frenchmen did, and that they were in fact identical with the 
latter. 

It is a significant fact, in this connection, that Radisson and 
Groseilliers cannot be accounted for at the French settlements 
during the period that the two nameless Frenchmen of the Re- 
latio-is were exploring the Lake Michigan region. Radisson 
gives no accoiuit of himself between the spring of 1654, when 
he arrived home after his captivity, and the spring of 1657, 
when he joined the Onondaga colony. On February 24, 1654, 
according to Suite, Gl-roseilliers was sergeant-major of the gar- 
rison of Three Rivers, and there is evidence of his presence at 
Three Rivers on September 29, 1656. Between these two dates, 
which is the period during which the two nameless Frenchmen 
were exploring Lake Michigan and the Fox River country, 
there is no record of the presence of Groseilllers at the French 
settlements on the St. Lawrence. 

There are some striking points of resemblance between the 
experiences of the two nameless Frenchmen of 1654-56 and 
those described by Radisson in his account of his first Western 
voyage. Both mention visits to the Pottawattomies and to the 
Maskoutens; both parties were disappointed by delay in return- 
ing home. In both cases, mention is made of the joy which the 
return of the explorers caused, salvos of artillery being fired 
from the fort at Quebec. Radisson says that the furs which he 
brought down on this voyage were a boon to the French colony; 
and, as a matter of fact, the condition of New France at that 
time was even worse than one would suppose from Radisson's 
words. ' 

Between Radisson's tale and the Jesuit Relations there are 

'Concerning the state of Canada in 1653, we read in the Relations that 
the keeper of the store at Montreal had not bought a beaver skin in a year; 
that the Hurons kept away from Canada: and that the Algonkin country 
was dispeopled. The Quebec store-house was empty. "And thus," the 
Relatious state, " everybody has reason to be malcontent. There is not 
wherewithal in the treasury to meet the claims upon it, or to supply public 
needs." 



112 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

some points of difference almost equally striking. The Relations, 
for instance, do not mention twenty-nine other Frenchmen start- 
ing westward and then turning back. The nameless exjDlorers 
told the Jesuits about the People of the Sea — the Puants, or 
Stinkards — our modern Winnebagoes; also, about the large 
nation of the Illinois; while Radisson, who, if liis account be 
true, must have seen both of these nations, says not a word 
about either of them. Ravlisson mentions an encounter with 
the Iroquois, on the Ottawa, while returning from this voyage; 
and he describes a battle that some Frenchmen and five hun- 
dred Indians under his command fought near Three Rivers with 
the Iroquois, whom they defeated. As to both these events, 
the Relations are silent. Radisson says that the Indians who 
went down to the French settlements with him and Groseilliers 
numbered five hundred; while the Relations state that two hun- 
dred and fifty Indians accompanied the two nameless explorers 
to the French settlements. Radisson says that the Western 
Indians, in going back, did not encounter the enemy; while we 
know from the Relations that the Indians who went to Quebec 
with the two nameless explorers were attacked by the Iroquois, 
and that Father Garreau, who, with Father Druiliettes, had been 
sent westward with the Indians, was mortally wounded, and the 
thirty Frenchmen in the party were obliged to return home. 

But, if Radisson and Groseilliers were the two nameless 
Frenchmen who explored Lake Michigan between 1654 and 1656, 
it is apparent that Radisson mixed fiction with facts, adding, 
for instance, fourteen months to the period of his voyage; hence, 
a few more falsehoods by him are not surprising. 

If Radisson and Groseilliers. were not the two nameless ex- 
plorers of 1654-56, that Western voyage which included the 
navigation of the Mississippi River never took place. And even 
if they were the nameless explorers, Radisson's claim to the 
honor of discovering the Mississippi must be rejected; for while 
it is possible that under these ciixumstances Radisson ajid 
Groseilliers did reach the Mississippi, the Relations contain no al- 
lusion to the fact, nor is he supported by any contemporaneous 
authority. Radisson, who fraudulently extended the period of 
this voyage, if he did not invent the entire story, must have 



RADissoN s journal: its value in history. J13 

drawn upon his imagination for some of the territory that he 
claims to have explored, hence impeaches his own testimony. 

Why did Radisson lay claim to the discovery of the Missis- 
sippi? Certainly not to rob Joliet and Marquette of the honor, 
for Radisson 's account of this voyage was written several years 
before Joliet and Marquette started upon their trip down that 
river. Radisson and Groseilliers entered the service of Boston 
merchants during the year 1662, and in 1663 went in a Boston 
ship as far as Hudson's stra,its, the captain refusing to go any 
farther. After litigation with Boston parties, who violated a 
contract to furnish them with two ships for a voyage to Hud- 
son's Bay, — a litigation in which our adventurers were unsuc- 
cessful, — ■ they went to England at the solicitation of Col. Robert 
Carr and Col. George Carteret, two of the commissioners who in 
1664 had taken possession of New York in the name of the 
British king. It may be that Radisson's account of his first 
Western voyage was written in 1665, for the purpose of making 
an impression upon King Charles II., or upon Prince Rupert; 
but it is certain that the journal of his fourth voyage was not 
finished in 1665, because at the end of it he describes the 
voyage of the ship "Eagle," in which, in 1668, he started for 
Hudson's Bay. This vessel was forced by a terrible stoi^m .to 
put back, while Groseilliers, in the ship "Nonsuch," which 
started at the same time, continued on to Hudson's Bay. It 
was the first voyage of our adventurers under the protection of 
England. Radisson finished his report of his fourth voyage 
immediately after his vessel had been driven back to England. 

It appears to me that Radisson not only wanted the prestige 
of Western discovery, in addition to the honor of discovery in 
extreme Northern latitudes, but he tried to impress the English 
with the desirability of acquiring possession of the fertile West, 
as well as of Hudson's Bay. In speaking of his experiences in 
1658, when he was about to make his escape from the Iroquois, 
with the other French colonists in the Onondaga country, he 
says: " It's sad to tend from such a place that is compassed 
with those great lakes that compose the Empire that can be 
named the greatest part of the knowne world. " Prophetic 
words, these. 



114 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

The key-note of his third voyage seems to be a desire to have 
the English seize the region of the Great Lalves. It was not 
until 1671 that the French formally took possession of the West, 
and the suggestion of English seizure, was not altogether chi- 
merical. Radisson's language, when he describes the far West, 
is seductive:^ "The country was so pleasant, so beautifull & 
fruitfull that it grieved me to see y' ye world could not discover 
such enticing countrys to live in. This I say because that 
the Europeans fight for a rock in the sea against one another, 
or for a sterill land or horrid country. * * * Contrarywise, 
those kingdoms are so delicious & under so temperat a climat, 
plentifull of all things, the earth bringing forth its fruit twice 
a yeare, the people live long & lusty & wise in their way. 
What conquest would that bee att litle or no cost; what 
laborinth of Pleasure should millions of people have, instead 
that millions complaine of misery & poverty! * * * it's 
true, I confesse, that the accesse is difficult, but must say that 
we are like the Coxcombs of Paris, when first they begin to have 
wings, imagining that the larks will fall into their mouths 
roasted; but we ought remember that vertue is not acquired 
wthout labor & taking great paines. * * * xhe further 
we sojourned the delightfuller the land was to us. I can say 
that [in] my lifetime I never saw a more incomparable country, 
for all I have been in Italy; yett Italy comes short of it." 

Radisson heard much about the Mississippi River, from the 
Indians whom he met. He relates that an Iroquois chief told 
him, during the voyage to the Onondaga country in 1657, that 
he had once been captain of thirteen man who had gone against 
the Nation of the Fire, and against the Staring Hairs, and on 
this campaign had spent three winters away from home. Rad- 
isson says that the scene of the chief's story was in the 
" upper Country of the Iroquoits, neere the great river that 
divides itself in two." - The Iroquois chief, according to Radis- 
son, told him of natives of that country who were of extraor- 
dinary height, two feet taller than he, and of tree fruit that is 
"as big as the heart of an oriniack. " In his third voyage, Radis- 

^jRadisson^s Voyages (Prince Society, Boston), pp. 150, 151. 
»P. 106. 



RADISSON S journal: ITS VALUE IN HISTORY. II5 

son describes the Mississippi as the river that " divides itself 
in two," and speaking of the "other river" he says: "These 
were men of extraordinary heiglit & biggness. * * * 
They have fruit as bigg as the heart of an Oriniacli:, wcii grows 
on vast trees wch in compasse are three armeful in compasse. " ^ 
The language attributed to the Iroquois chief, and that used by 
Radisson, are suspiciously similar. 

I have never read anything more confusing than Radisson 's 
description of his third voyage.- It does not compare in clear- 
ness with any of his other narratives, and the chief reason for 
this is that Radisson has invented at least part of it. 

To sum up: The voyage of Radisson and Groseilliers to the 
head of Lake Superior, and beyond, without doubt ended in 
August, 1660. If Radisson's first Western voyage, the " third 
voyage " of his Journal, took place at all, he and Groseilliers 
were the two nameless Frenchmen who, during the period be- 
tween 1654 and 1656, penetrated into the interior of Wisconsin, 
by way of the Fox River, their voyage being almost identical 
with that of Jean Nicolet in 1634:. But even if Radisson and 
Groseilliers were those two nameless explorers, the honor of 
discovering the Mississippi River, which is claimed by Radisson, 
cannot be bestowed upon them, because part of Radisson's 
third voyage is clearly a fabrication; so that, in effect, his own 
unsupported testimony in regard to the discovery of the Missis- 
sippi is impeached by himself. " False in one thing, false in 
all. " Especially should this rule be applied to the statements 
regarding the discovery of the Mississippi, an attractive enter- 
prise which offered the strongest temptation to falsehood. 
Radisson's claim to the discovery of Hudson's Bay, by an in- 
land route from Lake Superior, has a stronger basis, but even 
that is in doubt. 

1 P. 168. 

- In justice to Radisson, I have proceeded upon the theory that his ac- 
count of the third voyage is at least in part trvie. I have tried to locate 
the places that he describes, and to follow him in his wanderings, or in 
what he says were his wanderings. But it is almost impossible to bring 
order out of this chaos. The one point upon which I feel positive is, that if 
Radisson and Groseilliers were not the nameless explorers of 1654-56, the 
third voyage described by Radisson never took place. 



Il6 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

But without regard to the discovery of Hudson's Bay by an 
inland route, and without regard to the discovery of the Missis- 
sippi River, Radisson and Groseilliers ' were two of the most 
daring explorers that have ever penetrated our North American 
wilderness. They were the first explorers of Lake Superior, of 
Northern Wisconsin, and of Northern Minnesota; and they were 
the "promoters" of the Hudson's Bay Company. Few of the in- 
trepid explorers of New France are entitled to so much honor 
as we know is the meed of Radisson and Groseilliers. Their 
names must ever remain inseparably connected with the history 
of Wisconsin, of the old Northwest, and of much more of the 
North American continent. 

' Mother Mary of the Incarnation describes Groseilliers as a man of 
spirit, and one who knew how to make himself valued. Noel Jeremie says 
that he was high and enterprising. Suite, in " Le Pays des Grands 
Lacs," published in iyg Canada- Frangais, for July, 1889, declares that 
he occupies a large place in the history of his time. Further on, Suite 
thus speaks of Radisson: " Few figures of the seventeenth century have so 
much importance as his, in our annals. Gifted with an exceptional cour- 
age, with an ambition that was never satisfied, of an astounding initiative 
spirit, he was connected with grand enterprises." "Radisson and Groseil- 
liers," says Dionne, in Chouart et JSadisson, "occupy a large place in 
our primitive history." 



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